The Pope and the Duce Italy's entry into the racial
war against the Jews has no obvious explanation except as an imitation of German methods, vehemently as Signor Mussolini may rebut the charge of plagiarism. The number of Jews in Italy is small, and it has hitherto been a point in Signor Mussolini's favour that he has been untainted by the anti-Semitism that has blackened the record of Herr Hitler. But race is apparently to become an idol in Italy as in Germany It is not surprising that the Pope should have denounced the new development in scathing language—and just as little surprising in the circumstances that not a word of his long and important declaration on the subject should have appeared in any Italian paper, except, of course, the Vatican organ, Osservatore Romano. But the Pope's words mean more in Italy than they do in Germany. His Holiness is, after all, an Italian himself, and so are most of the College of Cardinals ; and a speech published in full in Italian in the Osservatore Romano cannot be kept indefinitely from the knowledge of the Italian people. Signor Mussolini has declared, without direct mention of the Pope's words, that Italy will go straight forward with her racial policy, but he can hardly desire to add an open breach with the Vatican to his other anxieties. Pius XI is taking his stand on ground where all Christian opinion will range itself with him, the fatal incompatibility of an exclusive racialism with the doctrine of the brotherhood of man.
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